Blizzard Under Fire | Roundtable News

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what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchained in the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof i am your host brain fam i'm with me once a month at least a special guest rick graham how you doing ray what's up brandon it's been a while but i'm here it's been a while and uh the news didn't stop but i'm glad to have you back onto the show to kind of play a little catch-up for those eager listeners out there who are lost in the world of game development and need our voices and opinions so uh if you guys haven't read the title just yet this is the round table news episode where game developers such as ourselves share our own individual opinions about

the latest and greatest uh topic that concerns you guys game developers so let's go ahead and switch gears and uh go over there and check it out so uh very quickly activision blizzard has been well more blizzard than activision uh have been kind of in hot waters lately following their footsteps of uh fellow competitor riot games i guess about a year after uh there was a lot of harassment claims made and really high departures in the last couple months diablo director overwatch i don't i don't think overwatch but like long-standing co-founders even have been kind of pushed out in the midst of this

uh rioting harassment right uh there were uh stories of walkouts one day protest yeah it's very actually very similar to right you know in the same footsteps a lot of employees kind of did a walk out and had their say and kind of push management to to have some kind of responsibility over these claims and activision uh were well in particular management uh board of directors were kind of suing them as well as california suing them over these widespread harassment because board of directors were led to believe that this wouldn't have an effect on the finances of the company but because of the harassment there was a huge dip uh in the stock market for activision as it seems to be i thought it was the

other i thought it was the other way around i thought it was the uh california sued yes which which then impacted everything like financially yeah yeah yeah you're right and then the shareholders were like what's going on guys right right right so yeah months months before all this broke out uh this was internally reviewed and uh management and activision kind of get confident saying that nothing is gonna affect us uh we're handling this this is under control right so obviously not under control california the state of california uh are are coming at him and like within that there was some kind of um [Music] bad press with how there were information withheld i believe too uh during the investigation um where some of the news was suppressed by

activision on purpose so this kind of was one of those with uh it's an offense obviously that that again broke out and made things even worse this has have transpired in the last two months so we're we're coming at this a little late to the party but kind of on seeing it all kind of unravel right and uh i guess that's a lot of news i kind of want your initial impression of this i mean we're kind of closely tied to the industry yeah i i've heard these type of things a little bit um and and just to kind of leave it off before i hand the mic over to you the cosby suite was kind of like one of the meme uh that came out of all this that kind of made it easily spread to the public about how they had like this um this office at the

at blizzard where a lot of uh underlings kind of referred as the cosby suite because that's where a lot of this was happening i guess at a management office so go ahead yeah take on take out what your thoughts are like were you surprised by all this i wasn't really but like okay no yeah it definitely definitely wasn't surprised i i think some people were acting surprised when they were like eight ed two blizzard you know activision blizzard and and it's like no man like this is this is very normal activision blizzard is just the one today um and it's the one and it's also like the one that should get sued by the california california that's a big one yeah right did you worry dude the department of fair employment right yeah so the california department of affairs is like suing uh them because uh they didn't want to they didn't want to cooperate with what they were asking them to do right so

that they destroyed said okay well actually let me fact check that real quick like so you're actually uh re-jogging my memory on this so i got my my company mixed so riot came back from the dead uh because after the blizzard thing because uh what do you say what are we talking about riot what no we're talking about blizzard but they were kind of tied together because riot had some news of its own case that was that was like that was a while ago right and that that thing blew up and was it was a big was a big thing right right uh like that was the least what how long ago was that two three two three years ago and right but it came back because when this blizzard thing blew up the state of california sued right as well because riot were not letting their employees know that that they are free to share information without any jeopardy uh jeopardizing without

jeopardizing their job right and riot led them to believe that that was not the case so they withheld information from their own employees from reporting about harassment within the workforce uh to the state of california so this was happening right when blizzard kind of blew up and riot got back into the news feed again it's so crazy man but also like ryan doesn't have to let them know that because that's literally the law right like you can't like you could you could go and make a claim and then right but i think they let them kind of be weird for that right but they led them to believe well i think they were supposed to send up a memo to uh let their employees know that this is you know uh public information that yeah uh it won't be used against him to kind of give that extra i think they were instructed to do that and they chose not to and they kind of delayed that process even longer because there's this small window where

that uh sharing to the state of california was important and they just weren't around to to do that i mean i mean all this stuff is like it's not surprising right because it's like yeah there's riot there right had its thing there's ubisoft there'll be soft stuff that blew up um there's everyone at this point you know there's a lot of companies where this is going on undercovers and there's whisper networks and people sharing information but but it doesn't really hit um the media you know what i mean yeah and this is just an example of like it took a literal court document for for it to be brought to the light you know what i mean um and then when you start digging deeper all sudden the cosby sweet and all this other kind of nonsense came out of that so yeah like it's definitely not surprising and it's just well it's just sad that it's still yet another yet another example yeah well i mean our our industry kind of leads to this frat boy

behavior here's some examples um this is shared from the kataku article and this quote in the office women were subject subjected to cube crawls in which male employees drink copious amounts of uh alcohol as they crawl through their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees male employees proudly come to work hung over play video games for a long period i mean don't we always play games during work while delegating the responsibilities to female employees engaged in banter about their sexual encounters talk openly about female bodies and joke about rape yeah those sounds like something typical images it that i mean that's the problem that's the problem with the workplace not being initial environment yeah i'm not saying that an office full of guys cannot be professional right and mindful

but as these offices get more and more mixed right that behavior doesn't get checked on a regular basis and you kind of let loose i i haven't made these type of harassment claims and made this stuff kind of uncomfortable but we all make jokes in the office right i'm not defending this at all but unless you kind of pay attention to what's around right uh you know you often kind of let loose tongue kind of what sing through the hallways right it kind of sounds like you're defending this but uh i'm not defending this i'm just saying that we're so used to the male to female ratio in the office that's what happened well that's well that's the problem right right and then you it's because of how the industry started people get used to something that's just acceptable behavior in a professional environment and and then now we're talking about companies that are publicly traded and worth billions of

dollars you're right right so there has to be some sort of maturity that you that you have to yeah it needs some maturity executing when you're in a professional environment and and like in california especially you're required to watch those boring videos about this kind of behavior and how you should not be doing it at the office right yeah uh so like you you just have to know that you can't you can't do this stuff right yeah i think there's enough of these stories to be like uh you've been warned you should get back get back to doing that uv layout and start cracking those jokes you know i crack just because i'm doing uv layers uh get back to work i hate to say this look again you know gator you you kind of heard that story right yeah yeah that kind of broke out around the same time uh and that that's on a smaller scale you know their indie studio um and it is a studio that employs a lot

of women i think like more than half uh from what i've read and um and it wasn't harassment uh in terms of sexual harassment but it was more like um uh undermining uh experience it seems i i think in that example is just more it's more of a of just ego a tyrant and ego in like and then that take control of how you communicate to people on your team yeah that's a tough one unless you and so you can see and examine that specific example i feel like it's it's very tough to kind of look at these reported articles and anonymous without knowing like all right what do you mean right because i am a lead i'll say i'll say this right like all right it is definitely from all the information that's out there it's a definitely different situation than activision blizzard right but still

it's still a situation of where people when you want when you get up in the morning and you want to go to work you're like goddamn i don't want to have to deal with this dude you know what i mean it's still that kind of situation it's you know the term's kind of a bit overused a lot of people mock it but it's a it's a toxic work environment it's a work environment that you're not comfortable in right um and that it's different from straight up sexual harassment uh retaliation yeah and and that and straight up sexual abuse right like it's it's different than that but it's still a situation where you're putting uh people in an uncomfortable situation here's another example uh shared on the site about uh how the women of color were particularly vulnerable targets of discriminatory practices uh an african-american employee noted that it took her two years to be made into a permanent employee well okay yeah while men hired after her were made

permanent employees all right that's shaky ground she also was micromanaged such that her male co-workers were known to be playing video games without any intervention here here's the problem when it's like this huge thing that's going on right all these little stories kind of get thrown into it right and you don't know what's true and what's not and what is it because there's a lot of experience thrown into it as well as like specific examples about that person yeah i mean yeah like like it's it's it's their experience and how they perceived it right and then uh when you're gathering with literature you're just gonna put it all out there and be like here's how this person perceived all these things right um definitely contractors and and wanting to get your role upgraded to full-time it's a problem it's a problem in general and it's definitely a problem for people that don't fit in yeah i will say this out of all this this or don't match the don't match the

well they they're just not a fit for our work culture or or some foolishness like that you don't want to do this pub crawl where you crawl around the office and drink like why why should i why should i why should i make you if you're on all fours in the office yeah yeah and people are cheering you on something's going on yeah something's wrong you got to make like an adult decision at that point and stand up and like no i'm not doing that i got bad knees well like continuing off that example i read this this is the part where all right something's up another african-american employee who worked in information technology was similarly micromanaged by her manager unlike the men on her team when she requested time off work her manager made her write a one-page summary of how she would spend that time off when no one else had to do any write-up all right that is that is a red flag if you have to write a note what like you're in fifth grade of how you would spend that time i am off that's crazy

yeah that that's a bit crazy yeah that that is uh not normal but uh yeah i mean the main issue is with the bigger company like activision blizzard they often try to push this under the rug as quickly as possible before it snowballs into what it is now a big problem and it's unfortunate but it is kind of like the norm uh for for these companies to act and react that way and i'm kind of curious to see uh especially with blizzard right what i'm seeing with blizzard because blizzard has kind of been on like a uh downfall-ish of as of late in terms of uh monthly subscriptions to all their franchises right combined it's been kind of dropping i think the last graph i saw was 50 over like three five years or something which is a lot not just wow overwatch everything

and so um it's part of the onslaught of what we've been seeing where activision blizzard or blizzard is becoming more and more active vision controlled right uh there was a couple years ago where activision's management kind of went in and blizzard doesn't manage really their own team anymore they're starting to use the publishers uh team to kind of uh market their game and at least manage that part of it so we saw like the external development or external management from activity starting to move in uh and take more control of blizzard a few years ago because of the slow downfall uh that we're seeing now with a lot of their thing right and now with blizzard oh geez kind of being pushed out uh you know how much of blizzard is left is what i'm asking i mean i mean well blizzard has been

bleeding it's og talent for a while but like i mean that might be a good thing yeah right that might it might be change and given bringing fresh ideas and and fresh things and and the next thing they do might be another huge success right like it's hard to say if it's like these special snowflakes were the ones that made these great games are they maybe they're the ones that made those great games at the time and that idea was hot at the time and in the year 2021 that idea is no longer hot right you know what i mean and then now you need the fresh new blood that's thinking differently about what the next big thing is going to be or the next experience is going to be yeah it's it's it's hard to say it's hard to say but like but this decline of blizzard has been going on for a while meanwhile activision stock is doing the best has ever been doing you know what i mean um so i don't know how much of that's really been hurting their their bottom line

yeah i mean if in the end they're just worried about their stocks going up they're down then a blizzard blip uh war rhythm [Music] but i don't know man i feel a lot of what the stock's been going through is kind of remnants of old success of the blizzard flame right well the other no the other part of activision has been going very well right call of duty call of duty candy crush right yeah yeah king king and and [Music] well here's the dangerous part right there's something i did read the blizzard kind of slowly flaming out call activision the other half quote unquote are going harder and harder with the just call of duty right a lot of the other franchises besides cod are kind of being roped into the cod development family and uh they're really putting all their eggs in one basket so

there's like a lot of particles that i'm seeing what are the warzone numbers yeah it's doing well no no no it's not dude well like i think that's an understatement right like yeah warzone is doing incredible right and so yeah like that's what they're going to do right i would love to know what war zones yeah i'll look it up right now um i mean the epidemic did it wonders i think i i think in terms of growth or during the epidemic it did its best division blizzard's call of duty drives 27 of q1 revenue in 2020. that's in 2020. yeah you know uh revenue's growing yeah revenue grows 21 percent and and driven by black ops you know and i think yeah call it totally use the money maker you know what i mean and

everything you can't be you can't really be mad at that yeah and it's mobile it's actually doing really well too yeah clod mobile yeah i mean my concern is that maybe there's too much focus and there's not new ip and stuff but you know this is something that we've seen in industry forever you know like like when gta was the hot hot thing you know everybody was making gta clones and pouring a lot of money into the next open world thing um that's calmed down quite a quite a bit and now the next the next wave of investment from all the companies seems to be like i need some sort of games as a service shooter that people will play you know what i mean yeah well on behalf of the california department of fair employment housing it seems like uh men were being groped

as well oh my god it's not a safe place to be anywhere man you can't be this good looking it's like it's a good thing you don't have to worry about it you'd be surprised man i am a type for [Laughter] oh geez yeah i mean i know some friends that actually left right before this all blew out knowing that it would become prom but they did say that um they say they witnessed some of this but at the same time they feel like a lot of these claims or are uh kind of leftovers from the old group um [Music] like a lot of the big stories are kind of from well they're from they're from a while they're from uh some some time ago um

but also like in that story that we're not really focusing on there's also like talks of pay yeah inequities right and that's that's something that's they found to still be ongoing right um so like it's not necessarily just like oh yeah that that that that's not a problem anymore it's always something that you have to be always mindful of and have policies and things in place uh that won't let it just breed investor you know what i mean yeah i kind of want to ask you about that right with this kind of hybrid approach a lot of companies still figuring out exactly how many people they want back in the office how many they don't uh we're seeing the tech companies around the bay area kind of focused on um on on on kind of reducing pay if you're not in the area right if you're in

another state how do you see that factoring in with all this um unequal uh payment and all that stuff like is it gonna get lost all this kind of progress we're making on this side like that that's gonna mess things up a bit well yeah that was actually that's so that's been a hot topic because there's like a camp of people there like if i'm gonna do the same job as somebody else it doesn't matter where i live just say money for the same work sounds like employee yep yeah period right um at the same time i'm living in cheap idaho idaho and i i could buy a mansion for two dollars and i walk around town wearing gold crown every day yeah um what am i doing to that local community because some company in california has enough money just to pay me crazy amount of money right um some people would say that community

in idaho needs everybody needs to get paid but that could have a really crazy impact on the economy of that of that place right so there's the other camp that argues that you have to get paid the local market rate for that type of job and where you live right that's an interesting i don't know like how that place is equity in a way right because like when it comes to gender male female no gender whatever yeah the person if two of the same people are in like idaho then the patient's in right yeah but if they're in san francisco the pay should be the same but it should be this san francisco rate and like you know in the hr and the comp team will will argue why this is important all day long right um but none of that will still convince people that you know

same work you should get the same day no matter where you yeah i mean it might be easy you're bringing the same value because you bring the same values right i think it's easier for people that is just starting to get on board and you can make that argument and it's like whatever but somewhat what we're seeing is a lot of people who are used to a salary are getting reduced salary because of this yes but i mean i mean that's just like you know you've you've interviewed for jobs in different places to relocating stuff right and and immediately they tell you well you know our cost of living is way less than san francisco right that's the first thing they they want to tell you because they're about to tell you that they're they're not going to pay you the switch right right and and if you look at it on paper you move to that place you're getting paid less sometimes you sometimes you end up living even better because because it's like it's way cheaper right and the big guy is still not the pika is less than the change in cost of living you know what i mean um

so like some of you still come out ahead but like that's that you know that's been the thing that's been i think ever since i've been in the industry here but is it really a thing thing that somehow you getting paid more in a community that's used to a certain lower salary is it that big in effect i mean what what what is the let's explore that a bit more because i i that's the first time i really thought of that like what are the dangers of someone rich in your neighborhood like is he buying up more land what like what's the fear here buying more like yeah well i mean look in and out like the whole the whole term gentrification right yeah is rich people going to just pushing others out and you just push others out because now you can afford to buy whatever right and so then you buy whatever drive up the drive up the housing cost because you can't afford it and it pushes lower income folks out right um that's texas

right like new york well well texas is a hot spot right now a lot of our friends a lot of people we know are kind of moving to that new tex hub space right yeah you know what but you know what they're moving there because they're oh texas is cheaper but then they're all bringing california jobs and a bunch of money and it's all rising up right now the locals are complaining about it yeah yeah yeah all right same thing same thing in seattle same thing in seattle right so that's that's you know it's a problem that's something that you have to be mindful of right like how how will that actually impact the community so that that is a legitimate argument it's not just an employer being i mean like it is but the the person getting the peak doesn't care regardless right like yeah right did you know the top 10 mobile games in the us grossed more than 340 million dollars in june do you want your game to earn more app figures is all about giving game makers the tools they need to get more

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built for individual artists whereas other source control feels like it's being built for software engineers mud stack is geared towards artists so that collaboration gets even easier and the only thing you need to concentrate is on your game itself and not the software so do yourself a favor go to the solution built just for you the artist and get started for free in just a few minutes at mudstack.com that's m-u-d-s-t-a-c-k com that's a tough one man that is a tough one i didn't think of it like that but what what you said totally makes sense um yeah we're seeing a texas like a lot of locals over there i have friends over there that are complaining about how housing prices are being raised up and they hate yeah these things like coming in people are like oh i'm gonna move to mexico and be a digital nomad and do some job that pays like

be an american salary and i'm gonna live in mexico right and then there's this rich expat in this place that has much lower cost of living you know looking like a king yeah right and not really feeding the local economy in that way you know what i mean yeah it could it offsets the balance right especially if you get a large concentration of people in one place that is a bigger piece of that puzzle than not a lot of employees consider i think a lot of it just has to do with education man like can you explain to me not on an individual basis kind of more like in a group you know so that you're you feel like everyone's getting the same information because that's the fear right as a person that's negotiating at the table it's like are you just screwing with me and i just think well here's the thing too all of all of that information about what you should get paid and market rate and how the company

decides that is completely opaque to the employee right right so so then it can totally feel like hr is like just trying to get over yes exactly i mean that's the that's the first sense right when you arrive to the goshen table you're immediately assuming that you're gonna get screwed but yeah that's something about the industry that i feel needs to change like not just about salary um transparency but about you know just game sales uh we've been saying this for a long time i have no idea there's no place uh and you see in the theaters and movies how helpful that is uh even now especially now during the pandemic it's it's changing the business by just how much we know a movie is doing in theaters right um like this last week in shanghai was a measure for for marvel for the theater chains about what the future of their business looks like and that info

was right on the right on cue to the minute to the hour what's the latest and that type of transparency helps both industries kind of move forward but like now we have so many different publishers so many inequity of pay that's behind secrecy right it uh i think creates more a lot more confusion and arguments uh between people than than necessary and everybody just assumes that they're getting screwed which doesn't help yeah yep i agree like if you're a director if there is some kind of clear equation that factors in experience right along with that uh you should be paid the same right if your experience is the same and it's the same title it should be paid the same but you know without knowing that or at least are these paid in the same

great band or range or whatever yeah um yeah totally agree yeah but i'm pretty sure it's human nature to find some issues with that it's like he he that guy is like some personality disorder like you got a factor in personality along with experience i'm way better than that dude uh i'm way more enjoyable than that dude i think that's what i think that's what companies are afraid of do like when it comes to pages they don't want people saying this kind of stuff and yeah dude what's the first thing what's the first thing right when you hang out with a bunch of friends you've been in the situation and somehow it gets to salary and you're like all right i don't want to say it or i'll say it and you say it and then your friend's face just turned blue you know i mean and then you feel awful it's like how much i don't know yeah i've been here forever 10 years i've had weird awkward moments like that

yeah you're the guy turning faces blue right i say i don't have to experience so they do not discuss these things but it pops up once in a while you'll be surprised yeah and it's always awkward and somehow you know the the immediate attitude when you hear something like that and you're in the in the chair of like uh unequal pay it's like [ __ ] that place immediate immediate resort to quitting it's like they don't appreciate me they don't know what i do i can't believe that interns getting paid more than me it's very human nature because you know your salary unfortunately a lot of people equate it to self-worth which is i think a very um [Music] beginner way of thinking of it right i think as we mature more in the industry it's like i mean it's hard not to separate it it's like somehow your salary is is what you're worth right but it's like nah man it's like

you're more than that you know you mean it's hard to say like that honestly because you know um your self-worth is how much you make that's pretty bad that's pretty bad if that's how you use like i i think it's more you you equate it to how much your company respects you or values you more so than your own self-worth right um because like your own sort of software should be like i should be getting paid billion dollars up in this piece that's that's how dope i am right but of course you know um you're not gonna get paid that right but uh but it's it's really you know how the company views you is probably what you really should care about you know yeah i think the company perspective of all this is is difficult in employee perspective lot of it i think it's just

uh clouded in a mystery of not knowing what it's like to be in each other's shoes if i'm your boss and you're my employee you know there are a lot of uh difficulties being you know the studio ahead and trying to be fair but you know unless everything is out in the open it's it's almost impossible or just fair enough or just have policies man just have policies in place and and like for this job at this level that's when you get paid right and then somebody come two people come in for the same level same job that's when you get paid and there's the thing have clear lists of responsibilities and outcomes for the level well this is my question to you this is playing um it's kind of playing the uh devil's advocate on this one um how much does it how much is the employee's responsibility and then stops to be an employer's responsibility right because

if you're coming for a job and i give you just a arrange a number right and the first guy immediately agrees where the second guy actually comes back and negotiate whose fault is that right and that happens a lot right and uh between female and male and or male male different people have different acceptance uh in terms of the first offer second offer well that's why you need to have the policies and the ranges and you go look this is what you know this is what we're giving you right or or let them say the number first you're like well that's outside of our range our range is this you this is what we gotta do right and then do some inventive things all we'll give you a little more signing bonus or whatever try to make up for it or here's some more stock to make up for you know this this negotiation right but um but when it comes to the base just always be like this is the range that's it you know there are some goodies that are like that where it's like there is no negotiating you know the base

um but you know you just have to uh you have to have the policies in place right and that gets around when you have the policy as a place that gets around the whole notion of somebody could come in and say i'm worth 300 000 and somebody else goes and did somebody else doing the same jobs again paid 100 000. so you're saying the you know the policy uh dictating a range but within the range it still can be a problem yeah but the range is just the ranges are not like that different different right you know it's not like the example i gave like 300 000 to 100 000 right yeah so some some kind of at least education from the employer's part saying like hey for this position usually at base level this is what would be like you got to remove like to say you got to remove that that that wild card component of being able to whatever you did yeah and and the whole game that companies play they come in like oh okay here's the lowest i possibly ever want

to give you and then you you have the buck and say no i don't want that yeah you know the game sucks yeah most people feel like well that's the thing like that i feel like when an argument is made about how women and male there's a big difference right that part you know it's hard to kind of say it's all employers fault you know or male even male versus male when you just get you got to remove the part that it puts onus on the employee it has to be on the employer right and then and then there's no room for it does anyone do that what company what game company does that nobody right i've never i never came to a table and they're like hey this is what we pay usually like all positions is like for real for real yeah i'm yeah this is for real for real all right let's start there i'm i'm not saying that complete like

all companies do this or whatever right but what i'm saying is like that would be a way to help getting getting around these so issues a very idealist yeah because like way of doing it other companies do this like they you know when they when it comes around to raise time they look at people's salaries and they're like oh wait this person for the last year has been getting paid way less than this other person we need to renormalize and then that person gets a bump but then they're like oh wait we can't bump that person all the way up because then they'll be like why the hell did i just get a 50k raise right like this seems kind of crazy right yeah and then they will start asking questions was i getting i wasn't getting paid but actually gonna pay this whole time and so they do smaller commits to try to catch them up and it's just like like you know what are we doing it's so tough it's so difficult man it's so difficult on both sides

like i i think people fail to realize how difficult it is to be an employer and and all these rules unreal written rules are being written every day uh yeah that's where you hire hr people right right that's their jobs human relations people do they go to school like i was like where do they learn all this stuff hey dude i look at tracks for game development i don't know where the hr people come from where do they come from i'm just asking on behalf of the audience where do human relation people usually come from out of school they do go to school for there is degrees even for that yes about company policies and all that [ __ ] well about human human resources in general and there's there's subsections right there's like like recruiters sometimes recruiters don't like i don't know how recruiters get into the mix but there's other functions of hr like hr operations and

and conf and those things like those people it's cool man yeah but i i've seen hr people at work right and they're like under the thumb of studio head and it's not like i see them going to college courses every month or two to catch up with the latest social norms right it's like how they get caught up there's human relations programs at universities bro bachelor of arts and human relations like come on man all right but these rules are new man this is my impression of hr right they're they're there in place as a puppet right they just forward along the policies of the studio head set in stone at the the founding of the studio and i don't see that ever really stemming from the hr department it's not hr department informing studio ahead of these policies that we need to change to be up to date these can be problems

right like i don't see that happening you know i mean all these ideas that you're saying is like no way an hr person is ever going to come up with this and actually have the influence to make the change no there's it's always been reactionary no as companies grow and get bigger yeah human resources policies got to change with the company right sure and you know and for yeah for a small company it's probably one person who's like doing multiple jobs and they do that thing too right but then as a company grows then you need to actually have dedicated people for that right the other person relations job is like you said puppet i i i think that's a very strong word but i would i'd say like the human relations department is also there as a perspective we could also protect protect the company yeah yeah well i mean i always assume they're there to protect the company not the people that work for the company and be there as like you know to get the complaints

and investigate intimidation so that the company does not get sued right i mean let's just assume that that's how things offer it but i'm just that's how i was supposed to operate but of course in certain cases hr to me have always been reactionary like oh [ __ ] we're in the news here's some stuff you know i mean i mean what's the second thing that we always hear it's like blizzard oh [ __ ] all right these are the policies that we are rolling out this is what we're doing right now we're combing through all the departments for all of our rasters and gropers right this is what we're doing it's like and what do we hear all the time it's like oh yeah this was actually reported and were known two years ago but you know we just never really surfaced any of this detail because because it would have hurt our stock that's to me what hr is and always have been like i never seen this kind of initiation from hr you know what what's hot right now studio ahead you

know not groping people this is what we should do and like be able to be able to nail that down and have an outline you know uh and then be able to be like hey one two threes let's kill it right here and now that's part no but that's part of that's literally diversity inclusion employee relations which is reactionary which is it's always been reactionary which is the part of like you know dealing with employee complaints things like that business operations policies benefits right like almost all that stuff hr to me would work better if the director of hr has as much power as a studio head the fact that director hr is under the studio head creates this problem that we're always having it's like how how can you make policies you know

for the guy that's breaking all of them you know i mean that's that's the usual case it's like what are you thinking on the course there's some some studio hits right now dory the studio heads are the one that's that's kind of pushing back on on these claims right harassment claims they're the one making the decisions usually saying like hey this is bad pr no no a lot of times what it is what it is it's like a claim gets paid hr's like we'll investigate they go and they start investigating and then they're like well that guy's a really high performer it would be devastating to lose them this sounds like a minor thing and then it kind of gets like swept up under the rug you know what i mean yeah um in every industry yeah it's not straight up some clear-cut thing and then they just do that a lot and then it's you know until the wall breaks california is knocking on the

door like suing right like because you're not hearing you're not listening to the people that are your employees because you're more concerned about the bottom line or the success of the project or whatever repeated aggressors i mean that that's what happened john lasseter i mean he's still he's he's making 3d movies somewhere else but for a long time in pixar he's kind of well known as kind of like you know kind of handsy right at parties and uh they warned him many times i've even read stories where they had a dedicated anti-groper you know assistant kind of following him around to to kind of like watch his behavior you know uh but for a lot of years you know he was an issue until it was basically this whole social justice stuff really got hot and and it was just you know a ticking bomb

and they got rid of it basically but that's pretty much every industry every thing that's to me that's what hr is it's always been reactionary and it's always been you know how silent and how long can we keep this at until uh we have to face face music right and then do something about it i wish hr was a little bit more what they're supposed to do but i think because of the company structure yeah they just are powerless until they get the green light to do something i think it just depends right and it goes from company to company and it just just depends but yeah yeah because i guess guys are just terrible man why is it so hard to not grope people like why is it such a problem dude i don't understand is it just because we grew up as nerds and just around people

and just don't know how to handle it you know it's also it's also society and you get away with it and it gets rewarded and you just don't know how to act that's really what it is i just don't i just assume that you know i don't don't do things that people don't want you to do as precise i don't know it's just a different thing i just work here that's what i'm saying man i just work here i go home i'm married and i don't want any of this mess uh [Music] yeah i mean i i i don't think that this issue will ever get better to be honest um not until the ratio from men to women are

more haft right i think when you are in any situation where one outnumbers the other the uh the the majority behavior yeah will continue to repeat itself well but that's why you have diversity inclusion that's why you have trainings that's why you do these things right is like like yeah like we want to get the numbers up and we want to get it to half right just because that's because the numbers are half that excuses you that act the fool you know what i mean like i don't i don't think so that that excuses you to pay people less or excuse you to treat people with disrespect like i don't think so right like i think you just need to be like i think this is literally people just gotta not be [ __ ] and have some sort of empathy towards other people that are not exactly like them that's what i'm saying but like as soon as you're like

no no no when you're out of class it's better no it doesn't matter i know it doesn't matter i agree with you but i'm saying the reality is as soon as they're out of the classroom of you know how to not grope and be more diverse they're gonna immediately fall back to old behavior because the majority of them are are guys right and it's funny to them you know all that stuff no i i think i think you i i think i've seen you seeing change i've seen um some some slight glimmers of hope here and there you know what i mean um and and i think just as more time goes on and as as things change things will get better i think personally what i think is whenever a studio reach that type of success that power gets to their head

uh to do whatever they want i mean i feel like every riot right blizzard are fine examples of a string of success for a long time no i i don't think it matters but the success it just matters about people being [ __ ] or not i think yeah but like i think i think there's a ton of unsuccessful companies that act like this as [ __ ] act like this yeah i i may have worked at a few right like you know what i mean like so so it's i don't think it has any like we could always look for explanations but i think though the one thing i think is a common denominator is you don't you just don't respect people you're an [ __ ] yeah you're not talking about me you're talking about those [Laughter]

know what you know what i'm saying that that's at least my that's my opinion and i will i'll stick i'll stick to it yeah i mean i think throughout my career i've seen more medicine i've seen like smaller instances of of uh mistreatment right not sexual harassment but like you know just glossing over opinions or or not taking a certain person as seriously as they should um to me in the beginning it was uh my first type of inequity was the age right because i always look pretty damn youthful for my positions that i've always been at and i've noticed like just older looking people who are like experienced just get that easier uh promotion right just by just how they look how how older they are how much

older they are right because all age old age gets falsely sometimes attributed to experience and so in the early part of my career i was seeing a lot of that and it was very tough for me to kind of continue and and be competitive it was just someone who who started the industry unfortunately at the age of 30 or whatever will actually beat someone who had three years of experience and then i saw that firsthand many many times at every studio so um i don't and i don't blame that because you know how do you maybe it's education but the nuance of that is so hard to uh correct right it's like you're gonna have personal bias you're going to assume that this person had likes life experience that is more fitting for a lead even though they're new to

the industry or whatever right it's very it's it's so hard i don't know how to fix that really i've literally like i've really done training where it's been about that right how do you recognize people's differences for what they are yeah and then and then value them right and like and yes it is inherent in us to kind of discount people that are not the same yeah and so you actually have it has to be a conscious effort right like like you actually have to be mindful and and make a conscious effort towards it you know yeah otherwise like you know what's like you know you know what i mean otherwise you just don't care right yeah if you do if you do care then you just have to be mindful uh and actually try to catch you know try to catch those cases where right you're not no i see it in all parts of um

all life aspects not not just career like um you know in the very much same way i had my kid early right in my 20s right so i'm hanging around with these you know old people with the same age kid and you know uh naturally they kind of click together better it's not like i'm kind of feeling left out i don't i actually don't like hanging out with parents really you sound like he's like you you feel sad being left out but it's just part it's just part of it it's like they're older they they like the same type of shows you know you understand you have old people [ __ ] and i was like my god i'm still young and hit i don't know what you're talking about how many pills do you take you know that's usually what my questions are what hurts still sprung dude um but you know i think it's very natural to

have that aspects of life stuff into the workplace and yeah maybe with training and all this stuff there's kind of like a positive impact at the same time uh i think there are misconceptions about diverse education and diversity kind of um uh the highlight of that is celebrating each other's differences and not about making everyone the same same which i feel get mixed sometimes in the messaging you know it's like we're all the same thing no we're not [Laughter] i like my race too you know you like your race let's just keep it that you know just respect each other but yeah we're definitely not always saying i hate it i hate when i hear people or like i don't see color yeah yeah i feel like a lot of times it leans towards that and it

it's worse in my opinion it's like we're we don't come from the same background [Music] and by doing that you're disregarding my my history a bit um so that i see a lot more uh when people kind of over correct right i guess that's what it is over correction and they just go the opposite the other side exaggerated and it's not it's the same result it's just as bad uh so i don't know man it's just tricky i i don't know what industry really nailed it because i look at the tech industry right and they are a lot more diverse but i don't well i mean like the game industry at least right but i mean they're leading the effort at least i mean the bar the bar the bar is in hell yeah right i mean so like any any the bar is still in hell when you talk about tech

so but you're like man it's a little it's a little bit colder up here i guess like it's no no it's not it's it's it's more diverse because yes it's it's a it's a it's a much bigger industry like tech as a whole is much bigger industry in video games and so when you constrain the number like you're also constraining the pool of people that get into it right so it makes it worse you know but but no exactly right like i would not like when i compared the two actually compared to percentages of the two they're actually like just the percentages so you basically control for size uh it's pretty similar it's pretty similar all right i was about to say like the tech yes they're making a lot more money but i don't feel like they their their workplace are are better right i hear similar complaints in those places as well of course of course yeah i guess we just got to find that industry that that really nails this um

i don't know any dude no one no one's really figured this out 20 21. there has to be one where there's not like a new allegation every single day like that well let me ask you this right this is what i'm asking we just we're coming out of 2020 the pandemic era a lot of people were remote i would assume the groping got less right like didn't aren't we supposed to be better like like didn't wouldn't that it mean like all this diverse stuff all these like stuff got better didn't it or are people zooming zoom moving like how does it work what's the crazy thing like a lot of the stuff that we were even talking about has nothing really to do with actual physical sexual like that's sexual assault right right so we're talking about salary and a lot of times it's we're not even talking about sexual assault we're talking about sexual harassment

it's just different right it's not exactly the sexual you have to touch and grope somebody i i need to just be able to picture this like zoom call meeting that somehow half the room is being ignored you know like how how did that translate to the digital platform yeah but that happens in a lot of meetings right like if you're the more introverted person the more quiet one your voice is heard right but then it's up to the people that are running the meeting and the more senior people in the room like to make sure everybody's voice is heard right you know what i mean man it's so stressful being a manager i don't know i guess i guess i'm talking like that i'm talking like just because i have a manager really yeah so these are the things that you just you have to think about these things it's so annoying though it's like it's like i go to my normally not only is it your job but in in like in certain places california especially

like you are legally required you know to my god all these rules right he's gonna play stocks people i've always said because i i'm getting to a point where half my career is being a manager now and it's um people are always variables right and all of my problems are people now like it's not about the work ever right and it's so it's like children yeah they're like children and it's always i would i would so i understand that science is i wouldn't necessarily say it like that but i was i would say definitely like the majority of the work you do but like a large portion of it is our people is people and people management 100 so anyways uh let's give some concluding thoughts

here some blizzard's going to do fine activator's gonna do flying this is gonna pass over they're gonna announce if not already some interim uh non-uh uh sighted uh firm that will be handling this and it fix all these issues i mean i mean they're also still hiring and people are still joining yes as we as we speak right you know what i mean like but at the end at the end of the day it's it's we're talking about the stuff more lights being shut on it it's helpful right and when i was when i started out in this industry there'd be no way in hell no this stuff is being talked about ray had some stories that yes yeah there's literally a story like nothing around sexual harassment really but there's there's stories that i have that it's like no like that cannot happen in a workplace

like somebody has to get fired for that these days you know it's so hard getting fired at a game company well back in the day you was just like it was it was crazy it was crazy was it that common back there because i feel like every company i have like if i hear anyone getting fired it's like the worst type of like he left them no choice like yeah it's so hard getting fired a game company nowadays shenanigans and layoffs yeah but like fire dude that's you must be doing something very special to earn that well anyways uh that that actually concludes this uh this round table news blizzard kind of and and riot in a good way uh are are kind of paving a path for those two companies with new leadership right a lot of people are crying over the og's leaving the company but

you know i mean the company was doing bad anyway so this might be the fresh blood needed and kind of mentioned before leeds kind of camp that position uh way too long and uh time to make room right change the hierarchy get higher salaries get paid all that stuff and it's exciting times of anything for those and it should be better time so now now uh the offenders are giving it a second thought before they go forward uh doing their next offending so i mean i think overall it's pretty good like it's perfect timing for for when everyone's going back to the office uh to kind of sense some some change uh yeah the blizzard one was a big deal i mean it definitely made an impact uh to the shareholders and and everybody i think they're actually taking it kind of pretty seriously now

uh because there's no avoiding it and for the better man that's a huge company hopefully that's another california company that if you guys live around here can look forward to working uh again or for the first time yeah it's good overall is good i i am waiting for that day that uh they tell me uh the highest number that they can offer in it being true that would be fantastic that'll be the quickest negotiation ever no more bluffing none of that stuff at the very least they're going to tell you the midpoint of the range midpoint of the range all right well uh thank you ray for for going on as always tell the good people how they can reach out to you to say how wrong or right you are about this reach out to me man [Laughter] what's your twi twitter handle at least it's uh w-a-r-w-a-d

[Music] there you go sweater go ahead and find in the show notes and as always you can tweet at me at blue champs as well uh and this concludes today's roundtable news episode thank you everyone see you guys all next week [Music] [Music] you